


The Candle in the Window

by Shawn Michel de Montaigne (ShawnMichel)



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M, Gen, Good versus Evil, Redemption, Repentance, finding yourself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-20 19:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14268051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShawnMichel/pseuds/Shawn%20Michel%20de%20Montaigne
Summary: Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell, convicted murderer, is released from Fox River Prison to help Michael Scofield, whom he once swore a blood feud against, in Scofield's efforts to bring to justice one "Poseidon," the CIA spook who incarcerated him and married his beloved, Sara Tancredi. Scofield even funds a new prosthetic hand for T-Bag, a beyond-the-top-of-the-line marvel that behaves just like any normal one but is many times stronger.But that isn't the greatest gift Scofield gives him. For T-Bag has a son, one he never knew he had. David--"Whip"--had been Scofield's cellmate while both languished for the past five years in a brutal prison in Yemen.The plan is hatched, the play unfolds, and David dies just days after Theodore finds out about him. Enraged, he once again lets the demon light the candle in the window of his soul, and kills the CIA spook responsible.We leave Theodore Bagwell in his cell back in Fox River. His new cellmate is none other than Poseidon himself. This is where we rejoin him and his efforts at redemption. This is where the candle in the window waits to be re-lit.





	1. Manila Folder

**Author's Note:**

> Like Robert Carlyle of Once Upon a Time, I consider Robert Knepper, who played the monstrous Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in Prison Break, one of the finest actors in the world today. His acting and portrayal of the nefarious, villainous T-Bag was probably forty percent of the reason I watched Prison Break week-to-week.
> 
> But if all Theodore Bagwell was was a villain, I would have quickly lost interest in him--and in the show. One of the things about him that was so compelling was his nascent struggle to find goodness, peace, and truth. In the original series he failed time and again, and in the end went back to prison. While an escapee from Fox River, after all, he killed almost indiscriminately. He deserved what he got, most assuredly.
> 
> The latest revival of the series, which aired last year, revealed a paroled T-Bag who clearly had made strides towards finding himself and his soul, and the goodness cowering in the dark corners of his violent life. But in the end his violent streak once again won out, and back to Fox River he went once more. That was where the series literally ended--showing him in the same cell as Michael Scofield's tormentor and abuser, the traitorous Jacob Anton Ness, AKA "Poseidon." The series centered around Scofield's plans to get out of the Middle Eastern prison he was stuck in and get back to America and bring Ness to justice, who had married his love, Dr. Sara Tancredi.
> 
> It seems that if you factored out Bagwell's violent proclivities, you'd get a man with an intelligence the equal of Scofield's, who was continually touted to be a genius. What made Bagwell so dangerous--and ultimately so stupid--was his use of that intelligence for evil and destructive means. What made him so much more compelling than Michael Scofield was his efforts, many times halting or postponed, to free himself of his demonic, blunt, stupid nature. It is for that reason that I have decided to write a fan-fiction tribute to Theodore Bagwell. I'd like him to receive, finally, redemption and freedom from that nasty side of himself.
> 
> Please enjoy.
> 
> (Please note that I am fully aware of the sexual assault allegations against Robert Knepper. This fan-fiction tribute is by no means offered as a slap in the face to sexual assault survivors, like I am myself, or to the #MeToo movement, which I fully support. Also: I strongly believe that, legally, the accused are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. I hope you, the reader, support that essential foundation of democracy too.)

**Was prayer enough for a man like him?** Was there a point in a sinner’s life when God stopped listening?

 

   He sat at the edge of the cement bunk, head in his hands.

 

   “C’mon back,” he muttered. “I can feel you.” He closed his eyes.

 

   There they were: the teenagers he’d slaughtered so long ago. Their dead stares eternally accused, their blood-streaked visages pale-blue, like ghosts. He’d been haunted by them every single day since.

 

   “But not nearly long enough. Not nearly long enough. Not nearly, dear Lord, long enough.”

 

   Human life had a price, one he was once more than happy to pay. It was like walking the aisles of Wal-Mart, and he didn’t give a damn if anybody was hurt.

 

   That wasn’t right, no. He _wanted_ to see their pain. He _wanted_ to see them cry and beg. It was boiling bile poured into a vessel that demanded to be filled but never could be.

 

   The judge actually smiled when she pronounced his three back-to-back life sentences. “Want to know why I’m smiling right now, Mr. Bagwell?”

 

  “No, Your Honor.”

 

   Behind him, outraged sniffles of the surviving parents, relatives, and friends littered the silence. The courtroom was packed. It was the most popular he’d ever be in his entire wretched life.

 

   “I’ll tell you why, Mr. Bagwell. Because where you’re going, pedophiles do not last long. Where you’re going, people like you often commit suicide instead of serving their full time. Where you’re going, hopelessness reigns supreme. And when you finally and gratefully pass from this earth, I know that the Ultimate Judge will impose an eternal sentence upon you to make mine appear insignificant. That’s why I’m smiling, Mr. Bagwell.”

 

   The courthouse erupted in applause. Bailiffs led him out of court. The door was just closing when the judge began slamming her gavel for order.

 

   “ _‘Woe to the worthless shepherd,’_ ” he cried in the dark. “ _‘Woe to the worthless shepherd who deserts his flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye. May his arm be completely withered, his right eye totally blinded!’_ ”

 

   As the faces of those dead children continued accusing, he thought of what he told Susan the day she came to confront him. Her visage had stuck with him ever since.

 

   “That dirty bastard came home, Susan,” he wept into his hands. “ _There was a candle in the window, and it was lit_. It wanted me to walk up those steps. Teddy was back! Welcome back, Teddy! Welcome back!”

 

   Prison life, in a brutal, almost sensical way, suited him. It wasn’t for rehab. He knew that from the many other times he’d been in lock-up. It wasn’t really for retribution, either. Not for ones as rotten as him, of which in this jail there were maybe half a dozen. Prison officials and bulls knew he was beyond rehabilitation. More often than not the true demons inside prison walls became unofficial employees of the state. Those who could be broken with punishment—for good or evil—were “contracted out” to the monsters to be dealt with. Drugs, whores, cushy prison industry gigs, and the like was how they were compensated. All completely unvocalized, of course, but understood nonetheless.

 

   As for rehabilitation ... well, no one in this god-forsaken sewer really believed that, did they? It was, after all, called the _penal_ system, not the _rehab_ system.

 

   He escaped Fox River with Michael Scofield and six others. None were monsters like him, including mobster John Abruzzi or Scofield’s brother, Lincoln Burrows, who was sitting his ass on death row for murdering the vice president’s brother.

 

   That’s how monsters _used_ to be dealt with.

 

   Burrows wasn’t a monster. But he’d just been set up by them. By free monsters. By what others called “civil servants.”

 

   “They shoulda fried me like bacon,” he sniffled. “But I got in just under the wire.” The state hadn’t reinstated the death penalty when the good judge sentenced him. The public outcry over his life sentence was ...

 

   “... Understandable,” he murmured. He looked up. He could just see the opposite wall eight feet away. “They understand. Ain’t no penal system for the likes of Teddy Bagwell.”

 

   He stared down at his hands. His _hands_.

 

   He lifted the left one and inspected it. Scofield had been responsible for him losing the one he was born with. A little more than six months ago, in his usual, cryptic way, Scofield gave him this one—this metal and electronic marvel, shiny and silver, and much stronger than his native one.

 

   It responded just like that one did—like part of him had stopped growing flesh and bone, and had grown metal instead. He opened the palm and stared at his dim visage in the reflection.

 

   He had gone on a blood feud against Scofield while the “Fox River Eight,” as the escapees were known to all of America, worked at eluding the massive manhunt. And for that blood feud he had ultimately been sent back to prison. He had let the demon light the candle in the window one too many times. He had threatened Scofield’s woman with rape, had tied her up and smacked her angel face and made ready to let that demon come out and play again.

 

   Justice, which seemed to bend to Pretty’s will every time, came a-callin’ shortly after. And there Teddy went back to Fox River after Justice extended his life sentence three more times for his many murderous misdeeds while outside these walls.

 

   But Scofield wasn’t done with him—which somehow meant that Justice wasn’t either. Five years in he was called to see the warden, who excused himself from his own office. Men in dark blue suits waited. One slammed a sheaf of papers down in front of him. “We’re releasing you, Mr. Bagwell. Sign these forms and you’re a free man.”

 

   He signed them. An hour later he was escorted to the gates. The warden, waiting there, made his outrage plain. “You’ll be back in here inside of a month, Bagwell. It’s in your nature. You can’t help yourself. You’re no good. There is no hope for you. See you soon.”

 

   He recalled thinking of the night a couple of years back when the lights in the cellblock dimmed and brightened, dimmed and brightened, as fifty thousand volts coursed through General Kranz’s body in the Kill House.

 

   “No, sir. You won’t.”

 

   He’d meant that with every fiber of his being.

 

   He turned and walked away.

 

   There was nobody to pick him up. He had nowhere to go. But as he gained the curb, a black Lincoln towncar pulled up. The passenger-side window rolled down. The man, wearing sunglasses, said, “Get in, Mr. Bagwell.”

 

   To show him he was serious, the man opened his blazer just enough to reveal a .45.

 

   “I’m exchangin’ six life terms and a hundred sixty-five years for somethin’. I guess this is it.”

 

   The man didn’t respond.

 

   Was that “something” a quick execution at the hands of what had to be the FBI? It seemed likely, almost certain.

 

   He took a deep breath, reached for the back door handle, opened the door, and climbed in. The driver didn’t wait; he punched the accelerator and the door, from the momentum, closed by itself.

 

   “The Langham, gentlemen, if you please,” he said, settling himself. “And don’t worry about steppin’ on it.”

 

   Neither responded. The driver glanced once in the rearview mirror, but that was it. He too was wearing sunglasses, even though they weren’t necessary. It was a thoroughly gloomy day.

 

   He expected them to drive into the country, order him out of the vehicle, and cap his ass near a ditch. But they headed straight for downtown. Forty minutes later they stopped, unbelievably, in front of the Langham.

 

   The one in the passenger seat turned and tossed something to him—a Smartphone.

 

   “Get out.”

 

   They appeared to be in absolutely no mood to wait, so he opened the door and climbed out. The car squealed from the curb before he was fully out, the back door slamming shut again. He tripped and fell, falling to his side. Two passing young women were there immediately, and helped him to his knees, and then to stand. “Are you okay, sir? Are you okay?”

 

   His good hand was scraped and bloody, and two fingers on the prosthetic had broken off. They lay on the concrete of the sidewalk between them.

 

   One picked them up and handed them to him with a look of disgust. “Here.”

 

   “Thank you. Thank you kindly, ladies.”

 

   “What an asshole!” the other one yelled, flipping off the sedan as it disappeared around a corner. “Where are cops when you need them?”

 

   “Nowhere I want to be,” he answered, his hand stinging. He thanked them for their concern once more and went cautiously into the hotel.

 

   He was dressed as an ex-con—denim workshirt and jeans—and was sneered at as such. He tried not to pay attention to it. Before glancing at the Smartphone, he examined the broken stubs of prosthetic fingers in his good hand.

 

   “What kind of trials and tribulations do you got planned for me now, Lord?” he murmured under his breath.

 

   He stuffed the fingers into his pocket.

 

   The doorman spied him and came up to him. “Sir,” he offered. “I saw what just happened.” He pointed. “There’s a restroom just past the lobby to the left. Please go ahead.”

 

   “Thank you.”

 

   Once in the bathroom, he put his scraped hand under cold water, hissing with the sting, and then dried it off using paper towels. The wound still bled, so he put a fresh towel over it and walked back out into the lobby.

 

   The Smartphone, in his back trousers pocket, was undamaged. He found a free coffee table and set it on top of it. With some effort (he didn’t want to get blood on it), he turned it on and opened the only icon on the screen after locating the on switch and waiting for it to boot up. A text message waited:

 

**Central mail: Post office box: #3459**

**Cain Savings and Loan: account number 45-a233/9hh**

**Amount: $150,000**

 

   “Well, I’ll be,” he said, studying the information. He grabbed the device and made for the front desk, where a young woman behind the front desk smiled nervously at him as he approached. It was a smile he was very used to, one that said, _You are terrifying. Please don’t talk to me_.

 

   “Hello, darlin’.”

 

   “How can I help you today?” she asked, avoiding his steady gaze.

 

   “I’d like to book a room at this fine establishment, but I’m not sure I’ve got my account information completely ... well, let’s just say it’s a new account.”

 

   She spied the Smartphone. “You can pay with that if you’d like. Just type in Langham.com and book right there on the front page!”

 

   “I’m not really handy with this newfangled techno-whiz stuff,” he said, looking her over. “Would you mind if I stayed here and tried it with your kind tutelage, should I need it?”

 

   “Certainly, sir,” she answered immediately.

 

   He stepped aside to let her assist other patrons. Device on the countertop, he managed to get on the Web. When the hotel’s webpage popped up, he clicked the _Stay With Us_ link and followed the prompts. He booked a suite (why not?) for a week (again, why not?) and went to pay.

 

   _Here goes nothin’_ , he thought, and entered the bank account number. It was already difficult to do with one good hand; it became doubly difficult with loose paper towel getting in the way.

 

   “Well, I’ll be,” he grinned past his frustration when the page came back with: “Welcome to the Langham, Theodore! Please check in with the front desk to secure your key. Let us treat you to the finest stay you will ever have in Chicago!”

 

   “That I will, that I will,” he murmured. He glanced up at the desk girl, who was once again alone and gazing uncertainly at him. “Says here I’m all booked up, darlin’. What next?”

 

   “What is your name, sir?”

 

   “Theodore Bagwell.”

 

   She typed it in with practiced ease. Her face creased in a frown for a moment, probably when she saw that he had booked a penthouse suite, which meant she was treating someone poorly who could easily get her fired. Her smile, which she directed at him a moment later, was much wider, the nervousness well-hidden. “I’ve got you all registered, Mr. Bagwell. Let me get you a key quick.” She reached beneath her and produced a card, which she lay on the counter. “Do you have bags today we can bring up?” It was obvious she was trying not to stare at his damaged prosthetic or at his other hand, of which blood was now soaking through the paper towel wrapped around it.

 

   “Not today, Cari,” he said, reading her name tag. “But thank you kindly anyway. Could you direct me to a clothier, and perhaps the elevator to my floor?”

 

   “Absolutely,” she replied. “Across the mall is a Slate ...”

 

   “A ... what?” he interrupted.

 

   “Slate,” she said apologetically. “Um ... men’s clothes. Nice. Just across the mall.”

 

   “And the elevator?”

 

   She pointed to her right. Just take any of them to the thirty-sixth floor.”

 

   “Thank you kindly, Cari.”

 

   “My pleasure, Mr. Bagwell. Have a pleasant stay.”

 

 

 

A couple of basic shirts and trousers. A new belt. Walkin’ shoes. Socks and underwear. All paid with from cash he shouldn’t have and taken back to a suite he shouldn’t have been allowed to get anywhere near.

 

   He pulled the key-card from his pocket at the same time he noticed a manila envelope halfway under the door. He studied it for a moment before bending to pick it up.

 

   “Nothin’ is for free. Never bought it for a second. Here we go.”

 

   Nothing on its front, not even his name. He opened the door, dropped the bags on a seat next to the window, and opened it.

 

   “Well, I’ll be,” he muttered.

 

 

 

 It wasn’t his nature to happily submit to having his strings pulled, so a week later and a new lease on a modest studio apartment downtown, he found him—Lincoln. After wading through the standard threats against his life, he showed him the photo. The one that came with the other documents. The ones he wouldn’t share with anyone except their probable author, whom he had once sworn a blood feud against.

 

   Two months later came hyper-advanced surgery and a brand new hand. “Outis” was the financier, but he had no illusions who that was. It enraged him, because he went into debt with no man, especially _that_ one, and because he couldn’t verify that it was, in fact, Scofield. Scofield who, somehow, from whatever hole he was hiding in, managed to get him sprung from the state pumpkin patch and had enlisted the aid of law enforcement, and had stuffed a new bank account with enough scratch to begin a new life.

 

   _Nothin’ is free_ , he reminded himself over and over again as the play gradually unfolded and his part in it became clear. _Especially when it concerns Pretty_.

 

   Indeed, it wasn’t.

 

 

 

It wasn’t a coincidence that his new bunkmate was “Poseidon” himself. Jacob Anton Ness, Scofield’s nemesis, had himself fallen victim to Pretty’s smarts and seemingly infinite guile.

 

   Ness didn’t survive the night. That was part of the deal. That was _the_ deal. With his new hand and its nearly superhuman grip, he crushed Ness’ windpipe in one swift move and watched him gurgle purple and lifeless over the toilet.

 

   It was much easier and more pleasurable than he ever could’ve imagined. He had lost a son—one he never knew existed—to Ness and his traitorous little cabal of spooks, and once again the ol’ demon lit that candle, and once again he couldn’t resist it. Scofield knew he wouldn’t. Perhaps that was the _only_ reason for the prosthetic. He wouldn’t put it past him.

 

   Pretty would of course be told. The news would get to him. Would Pretty dial up ol’ Justice one more time and get him sprung again?

 

   The warden hadn’t greeted him when he was readmitted. It was his way of saying, _See, Theodore? I told you. This isn’t news, so I won’t make it news_. But he was there when the bulls led him in chains to solitary. He was waiting at the door to the cell, arms crossed.

 

   “Take a good look, Theodore, because this is your new home. No more gen-pop. This is where you’re going to spend the rest of your life. This is where you’ve always belonged.”

 

   He motioned resignedly at the guards. “Put him in.”

 

   His cell was at the end of a long hallway. The large rectangular metal door looked almost blended in with the surrounding block and opened with an old-fashioned key, which one guard extracted and placed into the keyhole and turned. The lock buzzed electronically and clicked. The guard pulled the door open, and another pushed him inside. There they unchained him. The warden had already left.

 

 

 

Four months passed.

 

 

 

Had Scofield forgotten about him?

 

   Perhaps Scofield had washed his hands of him once and for all and had gone back to Doctor Prissy and her tight angelic butt cheeks, and left him here to rot. After all, what further use was he to him? Always an opponent of lethal violence, Scofield had been a different man when it came to Ness. Was he changing, adding brutality to his guile?

 

   The demon cried out to light the candle again, but for four grueling months now Teddy had refused to heed it. The demon wanted him to rekindle that blood feud, but he couldn’t let himself do it. The reason why stared him in the face every single moment of every single miserable day in this empty bit of purgatory.

 

   He gazed at his metal hand again. It was a marvel, a true medical miracle. Pretty had given him a hundred fifty large, but this thing— _this_ thing—was worth much, much more.

 

   How had Scofield come into that kind of money while sitting his tight buns in a hole full of towelheads in the middle of the Sahara Desert? How had he forged the necessary connections to spring him from prison?

 

   _Just how powerful was Michael Scofield anyway?_

 

   As he examined his hand, he thought aloud: “Do I hate him anymore? Do I still hate you, Pretty?”

 

   The man had spent five years in a prison that made Fox River look like a country club. Whatever connections he had made while in it came at a huge, soul-crushing price. Sara married his enemy. Lincoln and LJ thought he was dead. They were very close. Pretty had literally given his life to the state in an effort to free his brother.

 

   What brother would _ever_ go that far for another? Not one in a million. Not one in ten million.

 

   _“ ‘This is how we have come to know love: He laid his life down for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers.’ ”_

 

    He flexed his metal fingers and turned the hand over, flexed them again.

 

   Scofield, from that scorching Saharan hole, or perhaps before he was thrown in it, found his boy and enlisted his aid. They had become brothers themselves. Together they found a way out.

 

   _“ ‘A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.’ ”_

 

   He closed his eyes. He couldn’t help it whenever the image of his son lying in a pool of blood invaded his mind again, which it did a hundred times a day.

 

   His boy ...

 

   They’d gotten almost no time to get to know one another. Just a few fleeting days. The son he never knew he had.

 

   Scofield had spent five _years_ with him. Five years— _in the same cell_.

 

   “Do I still hate you, Pretty? _Can_ I still hate you?”

 

   In the past, and given the same circumstances, unbelievable as they may have been, the answer would’ve been simple and instant and given with bottomless jealous rage: _Yes! Yes! YES!_

 

   But try as he might—and Lord, how he had tried these past four months!—he could not dredge up that blackness. The demon could not reach the candle to light it. And the reason why was he himself: he would not allow it.

 

   As much as he didn’t want it to be true, as much as it galled him, as much as he _wanted_ to hate Michael Scofield and _wanted_ to make war upon him and _wanted_ to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, he _couldn’t!_ He just _couldn’t!_

 

   The truth was ... this amazing hand ... this fifty-million-dollar gesture of repentance and reconciliation ... was nothing compared to the gift of being with his son, even for the few days they were blessed to be together.

 

   And Scofield was responsible for giving him _both_.

 

   “Do I still hate you, Pretty?”

 

   He chuckled sadly. “Wrong question. Wrong question. _Can_ I still hate you?”

 

   Scofield was, after all, much more like him than he was willing to admit. That manila envelope under his suite door at the Langham was proof. The deal it offered to him was proof. The plan it outlined, long-term and brilliant, was proof. Ness’ gurgling, coughing, blue-faced death was proof.

 

   Make no mistake: Michael Scofield had his own demons, and his own candle in the window of his soul. That much was abundantly clear now. Perhaps that was why, in the end, he had not forgotten about him. Perhaps those demons and that candle was his, Teddy’s, insurance policy at this point.

 

   “Are you fightin’ it, Pretty?” he asked after standing and pacing, which he did probably seventeen hours every single day between sets of push-ups and sit-ups and jogging in place, and between moments of sitting on the bunk and writing short stories, the papers of which were always confiscated by guards when he finished. “Are you fightin’ your own Lucifer? He’s callin’ to you, Pretty. You won and you got the lady doctor back, and your little boy, but I know you: we’re more alike than you’re willin’ to admit. I did your biddin’, and I know you want to let me rot. That’s the red-eyed demon, Pretty. Wouldn’t it be nice to let him light that candle and you enjoy your little life ensconced in suburbia knowin’ ol’ Teddy is turnin’ into a pile of bones in solitary confinement in Fox River?”

 

   He continued pacing, his mind gradually emptying. An hour later a guard checked up on him and fed him dinner (turning on the cell’s lights), and gave him his papers back. He wrote some more, handed the papers back, and lay down. The lights went out. Before he dropped off he murmured, as he always did, “Don’t let ol’ Lucifer light the candle, Scofield. I did you a solid—and lost my boy in the doing. Don’t let that bastard win. Don’t.”

 

 

 

He woke to rapping on the cell door. Guards.

 

   “Coming in, Bagwell! Sit your ass on the bunk and put both hands on the mattress, palms up and open, feet flat on the ground!”

 

   He’d been through this many times. Usually it was an inspection of the cell. They’d tear the place up, push him around a little, and leave. He didn’t mind it so much, as it broke up the deadly monotony and gave him something to do—clean and arrange the cell.

 

   “Sitting!” he yelled back when he’d complied.

 

   He heard the electronic lock growl, then click. The door opened. The sounds of others in solitary down the long hall could suddenly be heard.

 

   Three guards stepped in. Behind them was the warden. He held a manila envelope.

 

**~~*~~**


	2. A Little Spring in His Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freedom is never free. No one knows this better than Theodore Bagwell, who spies freedom in the warden's hand--but also the likely very high cost of that freedom. What does Michael Scofield have in store for ol' "T-Bag" now? Read on!

**“Get up,” ordered the warden.**

 

   He stood.

 

   The guards did a quick check of the cell, then patted him down.

 

   “Clear,” one grunted.

 

   The warden entered. He approached until he was standing almost nose to nose with him. The envelope, in his grip, was by his side.

 

   “I used to believe in my government,” he said after an icy moment of silence. “I used to consider myself a patriot. But I just can’t get behind a government that lets scumbags like you free.”

 

   He turned on his heel, manila envelope still in hand, and marched out.

 

   Theodore glanced at the guards just before one, billy club waving threateningly, swung it into his jaw.

 

   He fell backwards against his bunk. Another kicked him in the nuts, pitching him forward.

 

   They descended on him.

 

   He refused to cry out or complain or make any noise of protest at all.

 

   Fists, clubs, knees, and feet smashed into him. Gratefully, the peace and blackness of unconsciousness claimed him soon after.

 

 

 

He came to.

 

   He was on a sidewalk. Next to a curb. The same curb the black Lincoln had picked him up at. Outside the walls of Fox River.

 

   He was free.

 

   Something was in Vice. Electrical impulses in its fingers attached to nerve endings in his wrist communicated to his brain that the metal prosthetic was holding something. Something thin.

 

   He tried raising his head to look, but agony in his neck and jaw kept him from moving.

 

   He spat blood. His neck felt broken. Missing teeth? Ribs—broken? Eyes almost totally swollen shut. Testicles jammed up into his bladder.

 

   All he had to do now was survive.

 

   Scofield hadn’t forgotten about him.

 

   If he died out here, he knew nothing would be done about it. Like the last time he was freed, he was released to the prison’s back street, one reserved for supply trucks and the like. No one from the public would see him.

 

   He choked out more blood and tried uncurling.

 

   No.

 

   It was damn cold. And now ... a sprinkle. Sleet. Weather moving in.

 

   Bulls were almost certainly watching him. No doubt one or two had high-powered rifles trained on him. One might just take a shot and end him. Who would notice?

 

   A gust of frozen air leeched the weak heat from his broken body.

 

   He’d forgotten about Vice and whatever it was gripping.

 

   Vice appeared undamaged, though his wrist just above it throbbed. Even guards with billy clubs couldn’t damage it. In its grip was the manila envelope.

 

   The distant sound of an approaching car. He lifted his chin as far as the pain allowed.

 

   Black car. Not a Lincoln. Not a government car. Civilian, older, banged up. It pulled up to the curb just a couple of feet away and stopped. The engine kept chugging.

 

   The door opened and a woman got out. She bent over him. “Oh, Teddy!” she cried in a thick Panamanian accent. “Oh Teddy, look at you!”

 

   She glanced with hate up at the towers.

 

   He recognized her instantly. He insisted while in Panama that she call herself Susan when she was servicing him. He didn’t know her real name. He had left her behind to continue his blood feud against Scofield. Somehow, against all probability, she was here.

 

   He coughed out a wad of blood and rasped, _“ ‘He fell among thieves, who stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half-dead....’ ”_

 

   “We need to get you out of here—now,” she said, glancing again at the towers. “Right now!” She thrust a hand into her coat and withdrew a Smartphone and held it up, pointing it at the towers, then at him. “If they shoot you or me, the video will go to the authorities. But I need you to stand. I can’t lift you by myself.”

 

   How he managed to get to his knees and then to his feet he did not remember. Fox River was suddenly receding into the distance, and he was in the passenger seat. He didn’t remember making it to the car, let alone getting in it.

 

   It didn’t matter.

 

   He was free.

 

   Scofield hadn’t forgotten about him.

 

   He closed his eyes.

 

 

 

“There you are. No, no ... don’t move. You’re covered in black and blue.”

 

   He couldn’t open his eyes. They had swollen completely shut. He knew he was on his back, and that, judging by the smell and the beeping, that he was in a hospital. He tried opening his mouth, but couldn’t. His face ... was covered not just in bruises, but bandages.

 

   He swallowed. Agony. He gurgled.

 

   “Susan" presented a straw to his lips. “A little fruit juice. Doctor said you could have some. Just a little at a time, Teddy. There you go.”

 

   He tried opening his eyes again after swallowing, but only got far enough to see fuzzy white light. Every breath twinged.

 

   “You’ve had dental surgery, reconstructive surgery on your cheeks, and have just been released from traction. Both your knees and elbows were broken, and your skull was fractured, and so was your wrist above your prosthetic. You’ve been in a coma for eight days. The doctors did it to spare you the pain and to give your body a chance to heal. I was so worried they’d killed you. I reported them, but I doubt anything will come of it.”

 

   He felt her hand grasp his flesh-and-bone one. “I think the only thing they didn’t damage was your metal hand. But they sure tried judging by your wrist. It had three fractures!”

 

   He heard the door open. A moment later a woman with a normal Midwestern accent spoke up. “I’m glad you’re awake, Theodore. I’m Doctor Alonis. How long has he been awake?”

 

   “Just now,” answered “Susan.”

 

   He tried picturing her in his mind. She was a beautiful creature, he recalled: full, dark black locks down to her shoulders, wide, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a body to die for. He couldn’t really remember what she looked like when she rescued him, only what she looked like back in Panama.

 

   He groaned. He couldn’t help it.

 

   “I’m adjusting your drip, Theodore,” responded Dr. Alonis. “You’re going to be in some pain, however, no matter what I do, and those casts aren’t going to come off for a while yet. But we’ll do our best to get you better.”

 

   “Susan” squeezed his hand reassuringly.

 

   “We’ll try to give him some liquid food in a few minutes,” said the doctor. “After that, he should get more rest.”

 

   “Yes. Yes, Doctor,” answered “Susan.”

 

   When the doctor left, he forced himself to speak. Every syllable felt like hot steel being shoved into his mouth and down into his ribs. En-En- ...”

 

   “No, Teddy, don’t speak—”

 

   “En-Envelope. Envelope.”

 

   “I’ve got it. Don’t worry. I’ve got it. It’s safe.”

 

   “Th-Th-Thank ... you.”

 

 

 

How close did he come to dying?

 

   Ximena hugged him. That was her real name—Ximena Gallegos. He hugged her back.

 

   He would be discharged from the hospital tomorrow. He’d been in here nearly two months. His last day of physical therapy was in less than an hour. He had one cast left, and it was on his wrist above Vice. It was slated to come off in another couple weeks.

 

   “I never want to go through that again,” he admitted when she pulled back. “But if it means looking once more on your lovely countenance, it was worth it. My ... just look at you. You truly are an angel.”

 

   The Department of Justice had launched an investigation into the warden and his bulls. Leaked documents from the warden’s office revealed criminal mismanagement, kickbacks, bribes, extortion, even murder. It was almost as though someone took extreme exception to the bulls’ treatment of him and decided to make them pay. The timing seemed far too suspect to be otherwise.

 

   He smiled.

 

   Ximena noticed and smiled back before kissing him. “I’ve missed that smile.”

 

   “And I yours, darlin’. I yours. You promised me that today I could finally look at that manila envelope. Did you bring it?”

 

   She gave him a playful scowl. “I knew you’d ask, so of course I did. Okay, okay, let me get it ...”

 

   It was wrinkled from being in her purse, and opened too. She handed it to him. She had stubbornly refused to let him see it until just now. He tried insisting, but her will was immovable. “I’ve looked inside it,” she admitted. “I don’t understand any of it. The warden opened it before you got it, because it was opened the day I got you off that sidewalk. He may have taken stuff from it, I don’t know.”

 

   He opened it and looked inside, then tipped the contents into his palm—

 

   —a red origami crane, and a metal bolt.

 

 

 

The bolt looked identical to one he snatched from Pretty back in the day when Pretty was planning his escape from Fox River.

 

   He inspected it closely.

 

   “What does it mean, Teddy?”

 

   He didn’t immediately answer. He looked it over for another moment, then set it on his lap and grabbed the origami crane.

 

   Scofield, all right.

 

   He scowled. The warden had indeed gone through the envelope. The crane had been tampered with and re-folded.

 

   He unfolded it. In black cursive ink was:

 

 _If f(x) = ax^3 + bx^2 +cx + d_  
_Then cut the lucky roots with marinara, but tell_  
_Only b or Helen, because they both_  
_Have a sweet tooth.  
_ _Put a little spring in your step!_

 

   His scowl deepened. “What ... the ... _hell—?_ ”

 

   “What is it, Teddy?”

 

   “Just to make sure: you didn’t open this crane, did you, darlin’?”

 

   She glanced sheepishly at him for a moment, then shook her head. “I wanted to ... I almost did. But I remembered how angry you got whenever I got too curious.... I promise, Teddy, I didn’t unfold it. I did go around town and tried to find information about that screw.”

 

   “Bolt. It’s a bleacher bolt.”

 

   “Yeah, yeah. A bleacher bolt. Why would someone send you a bleacher bolt?”

 

   He shook his head absentmindedly.

 

   So what did he know at this point? Six life terms and a hundred sixty-five years ... the rest of his life in solitary ... bulls beating him to within half an inch of his life ... and Ximena ...

 

   He stared at her.

 

   As he recovered, she shared how she had found him. She had fallen in love with him while he was in Panama and had regularly pestered the consulate to get him released from Sona, all to no avail.

 

   She learned about his past. It didn’t matter. He could call her “Susan” the rest of his life if he wanted; she just wanted to be with him.

 

   Months later, she discovered that Sona had burned down and he had escaped. She prayed daily at Iglesia San Francisco de Asis for his safety, and set herself the task of finding him. She had saved a lot of money working on her back and used it to apply for a Visa to the United States, which she received after a three-year wait. She moved to Chicago shortly after discovering that he had been sent back to Fox River. She found immediate employment as a translator and ESL coordinator for Wicsam Enterprises, a multinational engineering firm located downtown. It was a plum job with good pay and benefits. She felt extraordinarily lucky and blessed to have found it at all, and as quickly as she did.

 

   Theodore, when he found out where she worked, made a couple of calls. Wicsam was where Michael Scofield had worked before he got sent up.

 

   How had Pretty found out about Ximena? Theodore hadn’t shared any details of that period with _anyone_. Somehow Michael Scofield not only found the only hooker he ever gave even a slight damn about, but almost certainly pulled the requisite strings to see to it that she got her Visa _and_ her job.

 

   But— _why?_

 

 

 

Six months.

 

   He stared at the bolt, then at the laptop screen, then rose to take his pain meds. The beating’s effects may force him to take them the rest of his life, Doctor Alonis had warned. Still, he had felt progressively better, especially the past month or so. A few days there he didn’t take meds at all. It was wonderful.

 

   He swallowed the pills with water, refilled the glass, drank it all down, and returned to the computer.

 

   He’d been at this all winter. Spring was just around the corner, just a couple of weeks off.

 

   He’d transcribed the riddle to Word, but didn’t get rid of the red origami crane. He knew Scofield. Every single detail was critically important.

 

   He’d made more than thirty pages of notes. Phone numbers of bleacher manufacturers and sellers, garden and lumber companies, ax manufacturers, notes on various women named Helen, famous and not; every possible reason he could conjure as to why the b in the riddle was not capitalized; information on Chicago candymakers; information on marinara sauces and brands (empty bottles of those lying around); even notes from a high-school Algebra teacher named Mr. Brunk about the equation. It was known, Mr. Brunk told him, as a cubic function, which meant it had three answers—roots. Roots! Curiously, it was possible for two of the roots to be imaginary. Did _that_ mean something? Or was it just another series of red herrings for nosy bureaucrats like the warden, or anybody else who happened across the envelope before he did?

 

   He picked up the bolt with Vice and stared at both.

 

   Ever since his stay at the hospital, Vice had felt ... better. Stronger. More responsive. He could almost feel the steel in its grip just like his flesh-and-bone hand could. In fact ...

 

   He switched the bolt to that hand, felt it for a few moments, then switched it back ...

 

   It was so close that he had trouble delineating the artificialness of his metal hand now, as he once easily could.

 

   Did specialists work on it without his knowledge while he was recovering? Did they upgrade it when they worked on the broken wrist it was attached to?

 

   Scofield was clearly in trouble— _again_ —and needed his help. Why bother reaching out to him? Pretty could’ve simply had him freed and settled the contract and walked away. Instead he got a paper crane and a bleacher bolt, and a goddamned riddle!

 

   He put the bolt down with a sigh and leaned back in his chair, running Vice through his hair and taking an absentminded look around.

 

   He and Ximena tied the knot two months ago at the county clerk’s office and moved into her apartment. It was nicer than his, with a little more room, and in a quieter, more secure building. Her salary and his remaining savings was enough to support both of them provided they lived frugally, which they did. She insisted that he stay at home and solve the riddle, which, after returning home and eating the dinner he’d make for both of them, she’d occasionally help with. Her insights were interesting, but so far unhelpful. Still, he logged every idea and reviewed it the next day.

 

   So what did he know to this point? Almost nothing, save one item, which was the most obvious: the last line of the riddle:

 

_Put a little spring in your step!_

 

   Both he and Ximena felt strongly that Scofield was giving him a deadline: spring—March 21, which was only two weeks away.

 

   Two weeks to figure out the riddle and then to do something about the information it provided? What if he needed _more_ than two weeks? What if he needed a boatload of money to see the plan—whatever the plan was—through? What if solving the riddle meant putting sweet Ximena in even more danger than she almost certainly was right now? Was she being watched? Was he? It was foolish not to think so. Were their phones tapped? Probably.

 

   Pretty had managed to bring her here, to the States, and got her a nice, cushy job at his former place of employment. Why? Was she integral to whatever scheme he had cooked up? Why help her otherwise?

 

   Where was his impatient rage? Where were his silent but ever-present “proclivities” which should’ve been urging him to peruse kiddie porn websites or gay livecams or looking for a scam online he could use to grab some quick under-the-table cash? Was he truly disinterested, or did those doctors inject him with chemicals meant to suppress his more prurient interests? Was Scofield trying to tame him? Should he be paranoid over that possibility?

 

   The truth was, he felt quite good, better than he had in a damn long time. He felt sharper, clearer, than maybe he ever had.

 

   He reminded himself every morning after Xi went to work and he had a chance to look himself in the mirror after showering: “Six life terms and a hundred sixty-five years. This only feels like freedom. But it ain’t, Teddy, it ain’t.”

 

   Try as he might, he couldn’t drum up the rage such a confining reality would’ve called up in the past. Not even close. He had a beautiful wife now, and a comfortable home, and what at least _looked_ like freedom: trips to the store, sleeping in Sunday morning, a four-day vacation to a nice bed and breakfast north of Milwaukee, tending to the plants on the small terrace, takeout Chinese, reading before bed. If this was captivity—and it _was_ —it felt really goddamn good. He didn’t want it to end, and dreaded the day when it would—when he finally decoded Scofield’s maddening riddle. That would be the day the bill for all this faux freedom would come due.

 

   He refused to think of what would surely happen if he didn’t solve it in time, and how much steeper that bill would be—for him _and_ Xi.

 

 

 

The key, he was convinced, was the equation:

 

_f(x) = ax^3 + bx^2 +cx + d_

 

   He had learned so much this past half year that he felt like he’d taken a crash course in Algebra.

 

   He dropped out of school in the ninth grade and had only learned the very basics of Algebra. The more he learned of it, the more impressed he became over its simple elegance. It was a language that _described the way things in the world worked_. He found that remarkable, that he lived in a universe where such a language was even possible.

 

   He went to the used bookstore across the street and bought several texts on Algebra and took them home. They had remained open on the kitchen table. Xi didn’t mind them there, and it fact had completely relinquished the table to his efforts. They ate dinner in the living room while watching television.

 

 

 

Three nights later he woke, used the bathroom, and was crawling back into bed when, ruminating over the equation as he had countless times now, thought: _How long have we known about cubic functions? Who discovered them?_

 

   The thought woke him completely up. He hadn’t thought that before: _Who discovered cubic functions?_

 

   Could it be _that_ simple?

 

   He put on his robe, went to the kitchen, and turned on the light after closing the bedroom door. Xi was out and hadn’t noticed that he’d gotten up—unusual for her, as she was typically a very light sleeper. He booted up his laptop, clicked the tab to Wikipedia, and typed in his query after the site came up. The glow of the screen bleached the color from his face.

 

   “I’ll be damned,” he said, smiling in wonder as he read. The ancient Babylonians had known about cubic functions!

 

   He read and made notes. After half an hour, nothing availed itself to him. Frustrated, he was about to close out from the website when the beginning of a paragraph caught him:

 

   _In the early 16th century, the Italian mathematician Scipione del Ferro (1465–1526) found a method for solving a class of cubic equations ..._

 

   He stared, then began a frantic dig-through of all the notes and papers on the table, swearing under his breath. He found the paper he was looking for—the one with the riddle on it.

 

   _“... cut the roots with marinara ...”_

 

   He smiled.

 

   “Cut the roots with ... _tomato sauce?_ With—” he smiled wider—“ _I-talian_ tomato sauce, Pretty? _I-talian?_ Could it be that simple, Pretty? Devino, de Vinci, Devito? Mama mia I wanna pop yuse inna kissa, Pretty? Why else write ‘marinara’ in there, huh? You think you’re so damn smart, Sco-field. Maybe not, maybe not ...”

 

   He glanced back at the name: Scipione del Ferro. He glanced at his birthdate: 1465.

 

   “... Son of a _be-yotch!_ ” he whispered excitedly, staring. A moment later he was digging frantically again through the note pile.

 

   He found what he was looking for: a list of bleacher bolt suppliers and manufacturers around the country, two pages long.

 

   Near the bottom of the first page he saw it:

 

 **Clover Hill Associates  
****1465 Axtell Rd** **, Ste B, Troy, MI 48084**

 

   “Sco-field!” he whispered fiercely, grinning wildly. He grabbed the riddle again.

 

 _If f(x) = ax^3 + bx^2 +cx + d  
__Then cut the lucky roots with marinara, but tell  
__Only b or Helen, because they both  
__Have a sweet tooth._  
Put a little spring in your step!

 

   “Cut the roots—‘ _ax’_!” he murmured, then: “Axtell ... ‘ _but tell_ ’ ...”

 

   No telling with the small _b_ , but Troy was easy enough to match up: ‘ _Helen_ ’ ...”

 

   “Helen of Troy, Pretty? Really?”

 

   Clover Hill Associates was located in a suite: “... ‘ _Have a_ sweet _tooth_ ...’ Was the ‘lucky’ bit something to do with clovers? (“Lucky clovers”?)

 

   There was no way this _wasn’t_ a match. The bleacher bolt was manufactured there, or sold there.

 

   And it was there, Theodore realized, his grin fading, that the price of his freedom and his life with sweet Xi would come due. Right there at 1465 Axtell Road, Suite B, in Troy, Michigan. That was where he had to go in less than two weeks. In fact, that was where he had to go as soon as he could get his bags packed.

 

**~~*~~**


	3. The Trip to Troy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theodore is no fool: he knows full well that his freedom comes at a terrible cost. Saying good-bye to his wife, he packs his bags and gets on a bus bound for Troy, Michigan. That's where, he's convinced, the payment will be assessed. Read on!

_**"If this be your judgment against me, Lord** , then forgive me for playing the part to the best of my ability. I resolve to be your servant and your soldier. Allow me this point of pride. I won’t let you down again. You have my final, fatal word.”_

 

   He sat back on the pew and stared at the golden altar and the high, arching stained-glass window behind it, one with the cross of the crucified Christ in its center, which looked just like the prison’s. He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to empty.

 

   Before coming here, he had spent the day at O’Doole’s, which was one of Chicago’s fancier men’s clothiers. There he let the tailors outfit him with three new suits, new ties, and new shoes.

 

   _It’s right to look your best at your funeral_ , he thought as the men worked around him. They treated him like a king, and he let them. He tipped them well on his way out.

 

   He’d spied the hair stylist—Loyola’s Doos—a few weeks earlier while shopping with Ximena, and walked in there next. The women greeted him like royalty as well, took his fancy new duds and hung them up in the back room, poured him some gourmet coffee in a fine porcelain cup, sat him down and went to work on him: new haircut and goatee trim, even a manicure for his organic hand. The pretty young thing filing his nails took great interest in Vice, staring at it in rapt fascination. He brought the back of it to her cheek and gently stroked it. Her eyes widened. “It isn’t even cold!”

 

   “Maybe you could give it a buff, darlin’, when you’re finished with the non-mechanical one ...”

 

   “Yes ... yes, of course, Mr. Bagwell. Of course.”

 

   She lovingly buffed it with soft cloth, giving it her complete attention, and he watched and felt that demon stir deep down. But it did nothing but growl in satisfaction. He smiled with fatherly warmth when she glanced up at him, and felt like a king.

 

   Ximena had agreed to this large outlay of cash the night before. She was a shrewd woman, bless her, who didn’t mince words.

 

   “It’s right to look your best at your own funeral,” she said, and began crying. He held her while they lay in bed.

 

   “Just promise me, Teddy, that you’ll do your best to come home to me. Promise me, please!”

 

   He kissed the top of her head. “There won’t be a moment, darlin’ bride, after I set foot out that door, that I won’t be like that terminator fellow. Nothin’s gonna stop me from gettin’ back to you. That’s my resolve, baby, have no doubts.”

 

   He had purchased the finest suede leather gloves money could buy—black. And for his final purchase, he bought a new pair of Barton Perreira shades, reflective, with silver frames. They matched Vice perfectly.

 

   He thought he should buy a gun, but no ex-con would ever be able to get one legally, and he wasn’t about to try to obtain one illegally. He was determined to fly right, and reminded himself for the umpteenth time that he was almost certainly being watched.

 

   The day before he was to leave he logged into his computer and bought the Greyhound ticket to Troy.

 

   He could have taken Ximena’s nice, new Corolla there, but decided against it. “It might be my funeral,” he murmured, “but I ain’t gonna make it easier for you assholes to get me.”

 

   A bus would be full of passengers—witnesses. A bus would make things messy. And besides, Ximena had worked hard for that gleaming bit of steel in the garage below their apartment; and it was a sure goddamned bet that whatever hell he got himself into once he parked his ass in Troy would destroy that steel sooner than later.

 

   Buses were seen by most as transportation for bottomfeeders. But if the hell of his life had taught him anything, it was just how fucked up that perspective was. No, it wasn’t a corporate jet, but he had once hitch-hiked his ass all the way from Panama back to San Diego. In the most brutal way possible, he learned to appreciate just how nice wheeled, heated/air-conditioned transport _of any kind_ really was.

 

 

 

The next morning, taxi waiting, he held Ximena at the door. She wept silently into his shoulder, though she had promised him she wouldn’t. He gently pulled her head back and kissed her teary cheeks, and then her soft lips. He was going to miss those lips. Aside from Susan, he hadn’t been faithful a damned day in his life. Even more than Susan, Ximena elicited that homey, settled feeling from him. He really did love her.

 

   “There was always gonna be a price, baby girl, for me and you and bein’ free from the walls of Fox River. We both knew it. This is that price. But I promise you that I will do _everything_ in my power to make it back here to you. I’m cunning, you know? And if I don’t let that demon out to play, if I don’t let it light that candle, I’m _smart_ ,” he added, tapping his temple emphatically and winking. “I’m smart as _anybody_ , and I can get outta just about any trap those bastards lay for me.”

 

   He could see the determination reflecting back in her eyes, and damn well appreciated it. If she harbored any doubt, she hid it well.

 

   “Come back to me, Teddy.”

 

   He kissed her again, holding his lips against hers for an extra moment, stroked her wet cheeks, grabbed his bags and walked down the hall towards the elevators without another word. He turned as the doors rumbled open and gazed at her, his bride, one last time. The doors closed and the elevator descended towards the ground floor.

 

 

 

Troy, Michigan, was a little over four hours away by car, but six by bus. He didn’t care. He found a seat in the back, pulled out his cell-phone, and called her an hour into the trip. She had calmed down considerably.

 

   “I did as you asked and sprayed Raid all over the place again for those nasty roaches.”

 

   “Kill any?”

 

   “I didn’t find any, no.”

 

   “Good, good.”

 

   “Spraying Raid” was a euphemism for looking for surveillance bugs in the apartment. To date, they hadn’t found any. He had checked his phone again, and it too was clean.

 

   “Do you have the bolt?”

 

   He reached into his coat pocket and procured the bleacher bolt Scofield had sent him with the riddle. “Got it right here, darlin’.” The silver of it complimented the rich black of the glove covering Vice. He put it back into his pocket.

 

   Both he and Ximena were convinced that he needed to bring it along. Since receiving it, he had kept it near or on his person at all times, certain that its importance was greater than that of being a mere bleacher bolt. He had inspected it extremely carefully. By all appearances, it was indeed a bleacher bolt. There was a number under the hexagonal head, followed by a letter:

 

**23904-a**

 

   They were very tiny, nearly illegible. He had gone through every single possibility concerning them as he worked on Scofield’s maddening riddle, but nothing had come out in the wash. By all appearances, it was a single, solid bit of mundane stainless steel.

 

   One that he was still convinced, nonetheless, was absolutely vital to whatever was coming next.

 

   Three hours later he called home. “Just thinkin’ of my bride and already missin’ her.”

 

   “Where are you at?”

 

   “Comin’ into Kalamazoo,” he answered with a long emphasis on the _zoo_. “Goin’ Eastern Time. I’d forgotten to factor that in. Hopefully that won’t bite me on the be-hind later.”

 

   The bus stopped for half an hour once there so that passengers could stretch their legs and get a snack at the concession counter inside. It was a cold, gray day, and he was becoming increasingly anxious. He was going into a potentially deadly situation nearly totally blind, and found himself once again calculating possible scenarios and responses to each potential problem.

 

   As an answer to his jittery nerves, he took a grinning selfie just outside the depot’s front door and sent it home, with the message:

 

_Here comes the teddy bear! Watch out, world!_

 

   She must have been scanning the phone just then, because he got an answer back within a minute:

 

_A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I got a guy  
(in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo)_

_I love my teddy bear._

 

   He smiled.

 

   He used the toilet, bought a bag of chips and coffee, and made his way back aboard the bus. A few minutes later it was merging back onto the highway.

 

 

 

On the run from the law, he had spent three nights in Detroit. He remembered those nights like they had taken place just last week.

 

   He was wired on coke and _e_ and half a dozen other illicit substances. He’d just robbed a liquor store in Hazel Park and gotten out with $170, but also with his mug on camera. He’d cased the place thoroughly beforehand, but had missed the camera in the back left upper corner near the economy-sized bags of corn chips and the rack of rubbers.

 

   It was that camera shot that eventually wound up with him in handcuffs. It was the one Susan saw when she turned on _America’s Most Wanted_.

 

   Susan. He hadn’t given her more than a passing thought in almost a year! He wondered for a moment how she was doing, how the kids were doing. He held no rancor for her, no bitterness ... in fact, no emotions whatsoever. Almost as though he was a different man now.

 

   He put his head back against the rest and closed his eyes.

 

 

 

He woke when someone bumped Vice. It was a young, pretty teenaged girl who had sat next to him. She must’ve gotten on while he slept.

 

   “Sorry,” she said, and turned her attention back to her phone, which featured her and several other friends at a birthday party. He could just hear the cheers and laughs and thumping music issuing from her headphones.

 

   The demon stirred. She was a cutie, all right. Smiling, he licked his lips and closed his eyes once more.

 

   Half an hour later he heard, “Troy, next stop. Troy, Michigan, next stop. Please gather your belongings and have a nice day.”

 

   The girl had already gotten off.

 

 

 

At the depot, he texted Ximena ( _“Here. On my way. Here we go ...”_ ), then hailed a taxi. Light snow was falling, and the sun had disappeared, making the waning day feel wintry and lonesome. A taxi pulled up and he hopped into the back after loading his bags into the trunk. “1465 Axtell Road, my good man.”

 

   The driver nodded, punched in the address, and pulled away from the curb.

 

   He glanced at his watch—4:16 P.M. Hopefully this place—this “business,” if it even were that—would still be open. It was possible that whoever was there already knew he was coming. He had no idea how thoroughly he and Ximena had been watched these past months, but it seemed foolish to assume they hadn’t been.

 

   His phone rang (Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “It Ain’t Me,” telling him it was his beautiful bride); he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen.

 

   _“Was just at church praying. Please be careful, Teddy, and call me as soon as you are done!”_

 

   He tapped in: _“Almost there. Let’s hope the Good Lord is in a good mood today,”_ and turned the phone off before putting it back into his pocket. Ximena at this point was a distraction, and he’d need to be at his all-time sharpest for what was coming.

 

   The taxi slowed, the driver signaling for a left turn. He glanced out the window:

 

**Axtell Road**

 

   The sign was partially covered in fresh snow, which now came down heavy and wet. The driver accelerated for a short moment, then signaled another left at the same moment he announced, “1465 Axtell Road.”

 

   Theodore already had the fare ready. The taxi slowed to a stop in front of five large, well-lighted square windows beneath the sign

 

**Clover Hill Associates**

 

   “And here you go, sir,” he said, handing the driver the fare. “Keep the change.”

 

   “Have a nice evening,” the driver said after setting the luggage down onto the sidewalk, and got in and drove away. Theodore watched him leave, then turned towards the windows.

 

   From here it looked like a hardware store. Several of the windows were blocked by actual bleachers; an electric-blue OPEN sign hung in the middle of the middle window; and the two right windows were partially blocked by signs announcing various sales from “KASten Supports—1/3 off!” to “All Painters & Stripers ½ off!” along with store hours, which, he noted, implied that the store was just a few minutes from closing for the night. He’d just made it.

 

   (He had tried using Google’s Image Search to scope out this place many times before, but all it ever offered was a satellite view of the street block.)

 

   Leaving his bags between the hedgerow and under the windows, where they wouldn’t be spotted or get wet, he closed his eyes at the big glass double doors and took a steadying breath of soggy air.

 

   “Here we go.”

 

   He pulled the left door open and walked inside.

 

 

 

A large, bald bulb of a man waited in the back, beyond rows and rows of tools, screws, bleacher bolts (of course), shovels, and, along the left wall, small orange tractors and stacks of bright cones of the same color. No one else was in here. The man stood at the counter under which was posted CUSTOMER SERVICE. Theodore approached with an affable smile.

 

   “Good evening,” said the bulb. “What can I do for you?”

 

   _Security cameras ... all four corners. One above the sign. Cash register on the left counter. Panic button under the drawer. Left hallway likely leads to a back exit._

 

   His mind had seen all these things in mere moments, registering them almost unconsciously.

 

   “I was lookin’ for a replacement for a bleacher bolt, and was told you good folks were the ones to come to.”

 

   He pulled the bolt out of his pocket and put it on the counter.

 

   The man took it, turned it upside down, and inspected the tiny numbers under the head:

 

**23904-a**

 

   He lowered it slowly. “Will you wait a minute, sir? I’ll need to check in back.”

 

   His face had become deadly serious.

 

   Theodore refused to let go of his smile. “Thank you kindly.”

 

   The man turned and marched through double swing doors, disappearing with heavy footfalls, probably to call the henchmen who would be here within minutes, silencers and bone saws and a body bag at the ready.

 

   He thought of Ximena. What was left of his cash wasn’t a lot—just a shade over $95K—but it would make for a small pittance she could use to get on with her life. He loved his pretty Panamanian, and wanted her to be happy. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths to steady and ready himself.

 

   The man pushed through the double swing doors a minute later and came to the counter, where he lifted it at the hinge. “Come on through,” he said in a deadly monotone.

 

   Theodore’s smile had gotten too heavy to continue holding. “All right ...”

 

   He followed him through the doors into rows of darkened shelves loaded down with all sorts of metal in labeled boxes. The man was so large that on occasion both sides of him rubbed against the boxes, making them rattle. Theodore guessed that despite his size, he knew how to handle himself in a fight.

 

   _Who else besides him is waiting back here?_

 

   A solitary white light waited in the back. It hung over a card table with nothing on it save a laptop computer. The laptop was open, the blue screen casting its ghostly glow on the far wall, where saws hung menacingly.

 

   “Have a seat,” said the man.

 

   Theodore sat. The laptop’s screen was completely blank. Not a single application was on it. The laptop, he noted, was also a little ... different. Slightly bulkier on the bottom, thinner on top. It wasn’t plugged in, which meant it was running on batteries. He glanced up at the man, who regarded him coldly on his right, bleacher bolt in hand.

 

   “We didn’t think you were going to make it.”

 

   “What would’ve happened to me if I didn’t?”

 

   The man didn’t answer. He handed him the bolt instead. “Go ahead.”

 

   Theodore was about to ask, “Go ahead and what?” but stopped.

 

   He sat at a computer. An odd computer.

 

   He glanced at the bulb, and then again at the bolt, and then one more time at the computer, and then at the EXIT sign just visible in the very back. He took the bolt and, leaning to the right, gazed along the computer’s right side. Where normal USB ports should be was instead a single round hole—the exact size of the bolt.

 

   He pushed the bolt into it. The fit was snug. The bolt stopped maybe a third of the way in with a sharp click. The screen went dark. The large man next to him crossed his arms.

 

   The screen came on suddenly. Filling it was a face—a hawkish face. Sharp nose. High cheeks. Quizzical brow. Eyes that didn’t miss a thing.

 

   He hadn’t seen that face in years. “Well, I’ll be ...”

 

   “Hello, Theodore,” said Alex Mahone.

 

**~~*~~**


	4. Home Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theodore is introduced to his base of operations, one with cutting-edge technology that requires, of all unholy things, his ass print in order to access! Read on!

**“Alex Mahone, as I live and breathe.** At least for now ...”

 

   “You’ve got it all wrong,” replied Mahone. “I’d like you to see something.”

 

   His visage disappeared. What replaced it was a video of two men in black ski masks on their knees ... just outside his and Ximena’s apartment building! He recognized the alleyway. It was where the superintendent kept various supplies. The vantage point was from well above and to the left.

 

   As he watched, a man in shades and wearing a blue suit came up behind them, silencer in hand. He pointed it at the first, and the man’s forehead exploded on the pavement. The second one was next. That one collapsed next to the first. Their blood and brains pooled together.

 

   The video ended. Another began, this one unfocused for a few seconds. The image suddenly came into sharp focus and zoomed in, fast. He recognized the architecture immediately as the apartment building next to his. The camera zoomed even more on white drapes, partially pulled. What looked like a man holding binoculars to his eyes could just be seen behind the glass of the sliding door. The view abruptly shook as though someone had jostled the camera. It came back and refocused.

 

   The man was gone. A small round hole in the glass where his face had been had replaced it.

 

   The scene cut to another of what looked like a repairman in an elevator. He was a burly-looking man, bald, with vacant black eyes. He held a toolbox in his right hand.

 

   Theodore recognized the elevator as one in his building.

 

   The repairman flinched and collapsed, the hole in his temple spurting thickly.

 

   The scene dissolved. Mahone’s face reappeared.

 

   “There are seven more. Do you want to see them?”

 

   Theodore held silent for a moment. “Government?”

 

   “Private contractors ultimately paid for by the government, yes. There’s a very long, very convoluted money trail, almost impossible to track, but yes. The government has been trying to kill you since it set you free.”

 

   “And who do you work for?”

 

   Mahone didn’t flinch. “The government.”

 

   “You’re tellin’ me that me and my wife are in the middle of some internecine _war?_ All because I was _set free?_ ”

 

   The large man next to him cleared his throat, crossed his arms once more, and fell silent.

 

   Mahone sighed. “That’s the surface explanation; and yeah, that’s true. But it tells nowhere near the whole story.”

 

   “What is ‘the whole story’?”

 

   “That’s why you’re here. That’s why Michael sent you the riddle.”

 

   “What about Ximena? Is she safe?”

 

   “I’ve doubled the agents watching her. They know how important she is to what you need to do for us. They know they can get to you through her.”

 

   “I do not want her involved in any of this!” Theodore yelled.

 

   “That became inevitable when she married you.” Before Theodore could roar a reply, Mahone added: “We know what she means to you. She is your anchor. If that anchor goes away, so does your motivation and will. We can’t allow that. She is as protected as anybody in America is right now, probably including the president.”

 

   Theodore brought his hand up and stroked his goatee. “So you the white-hat boys, or the black-hat boys?”

 

   “A little of both, I suppose,” said Mahone. “We’re a government agency at war with another within our own government. We need your unique skillset, Theodore.”

 

   “And what would that skillset be, exactly?”

 

   He prepared himself for the usual insults of being a pedophile serial killer, ones Mahone himself had hurled at him.

 

   But Mahone did no such thing. Instead he shot back, “What do _you_ think that skillset is?”

 

   It was clear that Mahone—or whoever was running this “agency”—had enough sharpshooters and executioners and guards. It was also clear that they had resources and money. What was also clear—and by far most surprising—was that Theodore was not, perhaps for the first time in his life, expendable. Whatever Mahone and his boys wanted him to do, it _wasn’t_ a suicide mission. Else why protect him and Ximena all this time as he worked out that damned riddle that brought him here? Why bother giving him time in the first place?

 

   He had two usable and perhaps relevant abilities, which he’d always used in the past for evil and destructive means: to earn the trust of others whom he wanted to victimize; and his overall intelligence, which not only kept him out of the reach of an entire nation’s law enforcement apparatus for far longer than anyone thought possible, but also to see social structures very quickly and to be able to insinuate himself near persons with power in order to learn their agendas and possibly take the reins one day. It was how he survived Sona, and how, before he lost his mind there, he eventually took it over.

 

   A third ability, one he didn’t want to consider at this point, was how he could switch off his conscience completely in order to satisfy that demon deep and dark in his belly. If it came down to Ximena’s life that he employ it—that he allow it to “light the candle in the window”—could he do so without losing himself once again, very likely forever?

 

   There was yet a fourth “ability,” if one could call it that; and he considered that if he presented it here and now, with Mahone waiting patiently for him to respond, that Mahone, no dummy himself, would understand that he understood just what his other abilities were and would consider the topic closed.

 

   And so he lifted Vice, keeping the glove covering it on.

 

   Mahone’s hawkish stare hardened on him for a long moment. He nodded.

 

   “I always thought Sco-field had some plan for this prosthetic,” Theodore mumbled.

 

   “It’s very important, and you’ll learn why as you undertake this mission; but what we need now, much more, is ... well, let’s say your unique personality.”

 

   Theodore thought of flipping him off, and using Vice’s middle finger to do it, but held himself back. “As much as I enjoy foreplay, this conversation is beginning to chafe. Mind getting to the main event?”

 

   “Your mission parameters are encoded. You’ll receive the mission in stages in order to protect you and the mission itself. Once you complete a stage, you’ll get new parameters. You may report to me any time. We have considerable resources and monetary support; ask and you shall receive.”

 

   Mahone shook his head gravely. “You can’t call Ximena or text her. Don’t go back home for any reason. If you want to communicate with her, do so through me. I’ll take care of it. Keep the communications to a minimum. The less we stress the security protecting her, the better that security will be. Understand?”

 

   Theodore sighed and nodded.

 

   “Give Jake your phone. You’ll get a new one. This place is your home base and where you need to return when you complete each phase of your mission.”

 

   “What exactly _is_ my mission?”

 

   Mahone smiled, but in no manner that could be considered light-hearted or frivolous. “You’re going to save the world, Theodore.”

 

   “From whom?”

 

   “You’re about to start the process of finding out. Again, it will be by stages. And Theodore?”

 

   Mahone’s face had become even more serious.

 

   “Yes?”

 

   “I mean this when I say it: the very best of luck to you.”

 

   The screen went dark.

 

   The big bulb named Jake gruffly closed the laptop, pulled out the “bleacher bolt,” and grunted, “This way.”

 

   Theodore stood and followed him across the room to another door, this one guarded by a keypad and a retinal scanner. Jake punched in several numbers and put his eye to the scanner.

 

   The door clicked open a tiny crack. He pushed it the rest of the way and turned to Theodore as white lights automatically flipped on.

 

   “You can access this room any time. We just need to scan your retina and your hands.”

 

   “I’ll also need the code,” said Theodore.

 

   “No. You don’t.” Jake tossed him the “bleacher bolt.”

 

   Theodore examined it. “Am I to carry this thing everywhere I go?”

 

   “No. You’ll keep it in here until you reach each sub-mission’s objective. Then you’ll need to come back and get it for more instructions, as well as to complete necessary paperwork.”

 

   The large man went to another computer, this one a flat-screen desktop surrounded on three sides by what looked like many black filing cabinets with no handles, and sat. The swivel chair groaned under the weight. He pointed to the top of a cabinet, upon which rested a small black ball with what looked like a red eye on it. “Put your right eye close to the red part of that scanner.”

 

   Theodore picked the ball up, examined it a moment, and then put the red eye close to his right eye.

 

   “Don’t blink,” ordered Jake.

 

   The red eye came to light suddenly, flashing blindingly.

 

   “Got it. Now the left.”

 

   Theodore, blinking heavily, put his left eye against the ball. It flashed.

 

   “You can put it down.”

 

   _“Je-zus!”_ Theodore exclaimed as he put the ball back down on the cabinet. His eyes had filled with tears.

 

   “Come here and put your hands on this pad—the prosthetic first.”

 

   Jake had produced a rectangular pad from under the desk and set it next to the computer. It was large enough to put an adult hand on. Theodore, still blinking, took his gloves off and, locating the pad, put Vice on it.

 

   “Press down,” ordered Jake.

 

   Theodore did.

 

   Something astonishing happened: Vice seemed to go partially translucent for a moment, with a sudden purple web of lightning showing just under the surface. He felt that lightning, but not sharply: more like a pleasant tingle. It went away, and the reflective silver hardness was back. He went to examine it closely, turning his hand over and back, but Jake ordered:

 

   “Put your right hand down.”

 

   He put his right hand on the pad and pressed down.

 

   “The keypad that lets you in here won’t open unless it senses your DNA. You just gave it the sample that allows you in. You don’t need to know the code, because there isn’t one. Just press any number or any sequence of numbers a set number of times and hit the star key, and you’ll get in. You need to keep that set number of times constant, do you understand?”

 

   Theodore scowled. The flashes in his eyes were finally fading away. “I think so ...”

 

   “If you press the keypad four times, then the next time you come in, do it again—just four times. If you start with five or six or ten times, then keep with that number. Don’t deviate from it.”

 

   “I can press any numbers I want, any order, just randomly each time?”

 

   “That’s right. Or not randomly. It’s up to you. The system doesn’t let you in by any code, but by your DNA and the set number you choose. Whatever you do after that, _don’t_ press the pound key. Got it?”

 

   “Why?”

 

   “It will inform the agency that you’re in danger or have been compromised. It’s what people are told to do, for example, when calling in a prescription—enter the RX number and press the pound key. It’s an alarm. It means you and the mission are in danger. Understand?”

 

   “Yeah. I think so.”

 

   The fat man was in no mood to dither. “Good. This room is protected by ultra-reinforced concrete and ultra-high-stress rebar, and can withstand repeated barrages from weaponry as large as a tank if need be without being compromised. This is your safe room, your home base. The laptop will go in here as well; I’ve just been a little lazy in getting a desk for it. There’s a room back there,” Jake pointed past the cabinets towards a dark wall, “with a bed and a bathroom and a small kitchenette.”

 

   He stood and motioned gruffly at the computer, which was powering off. “I’ve been able to access this computer because I designed and built it. No one else can. Not even Mahone. Not even Scofield. Only you.”

 

   “And how do I do that?”

 

   “Sit.”

 

   Theodore gave him a sideways glance and sat down. The computer immediately began powering up.

 

   “I didn’t do anything,” he said, gazing around.

 

   “When you were in Fox River, you got a colonoscopy. The visiting doctor ... he’s one of ours. He took a detailed print of your ass, as well as a sample of the base gases your colon emits. Both are unique to each individual. The chair seat you’re sitting on is a highly sensitive sensor that just measured both. It’s the only way the computer will turn on.”

 

   The home screen, at least twenty inches across, was grey-blue, with an artful white swish near the top that ended with:

 

_Welcome, Theodore_

 

   “Here,” said Jake, who tossed him something. Theodore, flummoxed, just got hold of his wits long enough to see something gold flipping towards him, snagging it before it struck his head.

 

   A key.

 

   “That’s to the back door to this shop,” grunted Jake. “It’s a secured key, meaning, like the computer, it will only work with your touch. From now on, don’t come in through the front—ever. Got it?”

 

   “Yeah,” said Theodore. “Got it. My things are ...”

 

   “I’ll get ‘em. I’ll leave ‘em outside the door. Once you sat in that chair there, my ass-gas print was deleted off the system. This is a quantum computer; it doesn’t run like other computers, and is far faster and more powerful. You’re now the only person on Earth with access to it. No one can hack it; no one can infect it with a virus. What you put on it is totally private. Understand?”

 

   Theodore gazed at the machine before him. “And the laptop outside there?”

 

   “It’s quantum as well, and is connected to this one. Once you were identified by Mahone, all abilities for me or anyone to use it were removed. I’ll get a desk and put it outside the door as well. You can bring it and the laptop in here.”

 

   Theodore looked up at him. “And what is your role in all this besides playing tutor?”

 

   Jake grinned. It was the first time he’d cracked a smile since Theodore met him.

 

   “I’m thankfully done at this point. I get to go back to being a simple supply store owner with a family and a mortgage and a white picket fence. I don’t want you talking to me after today; and if you so much as look at one of my daughters, I’ll end you where you stand, and I don’t care if the world goes to hell after that. Clear?”

 

   Theodore gave him the look he reserved for bulls. “Crystal. Mind tellin’ me what my ‘mission’ is?”

 

   “I have no fucking idea what your ‘mission’ is. Mahone said you were smart, so figure it out! Oh—and one more thing. Don’t use this machine to contact your wife. Don’t use the laptop either. Both machines may be state-of-the-art, but they still have to connect to the Internet, and so can be, at least theoretically, traced back here. That’s very unlikely, given the massive security protocols in place, but it isn’t a zero chance, and I _don’t_ want this store invaded by who-knows-what because you couldn’t keep your pecker in your pants!”

 

   Theodore didn’t respond. He returned the fat man’s glare until he turned on his heel and began marching out of the room.

 

   “You forgot something,” said Theodore.

 

   Jake turned around in time to catch the cell-phone sailing for his head. He caught it and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

 

   Theodore was growing very tired, and thought of home and his bride and sleeping in their nice queen-sized bed after a nice home-cooked meal.

 

   Home. Bride. Bed. Home-cooked meal.

 

   Three of the four were now denied him, possibly for the rest of his life, which itself may have been put on a severely truncated schedule. And the fourth he couldn’t contact except very rarely. As he thought of her, he gazed at his gloves, which were on a cabinet, and then back at the computer. He licked his lips and reached inside his coat pocket for the bolt. Gazing along the right side of the quantum computer, he spied the hole. He inserted the bolt and waited as the screen dissolved to show a file with a single tab:

 

**_Sub_ MISSION OVERVIEW—“2”**

 

   He glanced around for a mouse so that he could double-click the tab, and then for a keypad mouse below the keyboard. But there were neither. He tried tapping the screen right over the tab, but that didn’t work either. Without thinking, he said:

 

   What is this ‘submission overview 2’?”—and was shocked when the tab opened and a female voice answered:

 

   “Voice print identified. Greetings, Mr. Bagwell.”

 

**~~*~~**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'll post new chapters as I complete them. In the meantime, please visit my blog: ThePiertoForever.com!


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